


green beneath the rime

by feralphoenix



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Other, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-19
Updated: 2015-09-19
Packaged: 2018-04-21 14:00:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4831682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feralphoenix/pseuds/feralphoenix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even so, you will remember this moment: No matter how many years pass, no matter what form you take.</p>
            </blockquote>





	green beneath the rime

**Author's Note:**

> _(it’s a monster we’ve created ourselves_ – honor, innocence, slander)
> 
> if you havent got to the end of the pacifist run's postgame/a no mercy run this will spoil some pretty big stuff, this is your cue to make like aaron and flex outta this room, the fic will still be here when youve finished
> 
>  
> 
> warnings for suicide and the inherent grossness of death by poison

You eat the flowers with both hands, every chance you get, every time the monsters’ backs are turned. You eat them even when your fingers blister, when your vision sways, when your limbs are shaking. They make you throw up, make you bleed from terrible places, and you can almost feel your body slowly rotting from the inside out. You wonder if this is how your favorite knife felt after they took it away from you, eaten up by rust, useless.

The monster child reaches out once, holds your hand in his soft paws. He is unable to meet your gaze for more than a moment.

“We can stop, if you want,” he says in a whisper. The juice of the crushed flowers stains his fur yellow; your blood dots it red. “I can tell Mom and Dad, and they can fix this. We can still stop.”

You are very tired. You take your hand away without speaking.

 

 

It takes a very long time to entrench the poison to the point where you are beyond all help, but you are and have always been determined.

Soon. Very soon you will be able to exact your vengeance on the village for what happened before. That is the thought you cling to through the long nights of misery; through the day the sores and scar tissue ruin your hands; through the hideous damnable weakness. You’ll kill them. They’ll pay.

Either that, or you’ll just die, and you won’t know the difference.

You can’t wait.

 

 

“I don’t like this plan anymore,” he says, crying, as usual.

The queen is holding your weeping hands.

The king is calling out to you to hold on.

The panic comes over you again—not fear and not even revulsion, but that bizarre feeling of weakness that you cannot quantify. You want to snatch up a weapon and snarl at them until they stop, you want to recoil. You do not understand. You do not understand.

You cannot even open your eyes anymore. Everyone is calling out to you. The king begs you to stay determined.

And the words start to well up in your throat. The one thing you’ve wanted to ask, all this time, the question you’ve killed relentlessly since you fell into this strange place and these monsters took you in without question.

_Why are you being so nice to me?_

But your last breaths are rattling in your lungs, and even if you could bear to make yourself that vulnerable to anyone ever again, you wouldn’t be able to ask.

 

 

(Even so, you will remember this moment: No matter how many years pass, no matter what form you take. No matter what else you lose. The fading memory of the king’s voice, the queen’s touch, the prince’s tears will always bring you back to your sense of purpose: Shining or terrible or bright. Split apart or whole. Bursting with hope, or hungry for something else to fill the aching emptiness. This, of everything that has happened to you, will ever be the wellspring of your resolve.)

 

 

You can still taste the bitter burning of buttercups at the back of your throat. Even the queen’s favorite snail pie would be better than this. You think to yourself, vaguely, that if you had had to choose a last thing to ever taste, butterscotch would have been better.


End file.
